The hunt for T-1, THE MAN-EATING TIGER
FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS A VILLAGE IN CENTRAL INDIA HAS BEEN ON THE LOOKOUT FOR ITS DEEPEST SOURCE OF TERROR
The first victim was an elderly woman, discovered face down in a cotton field with huge claw marks dug into her back. The next was an older male farmer, his left leg torn off.
The killings have gone on for more than two years, sowing panic in the hills around Pandharkawada, a town in central India. In mid-August, the mauled body of Vaghuji Kanadhari Raut, a cattle herder, was found near a rural highway. He was victim No 12.
DNA tests, camera traps, numerous spottings and pugmarks — tiger footprints — pinned at least 13 human killings on a single, five-year-old female tiger that seems to have developed a taste for human flesh and has evaded capture several times.
At night, young men in the nearby villages carry torches and bamboo sticks and go on patrol. They have roughed up forest guards, furious that the authorities can’t stop the killings.
Experts say it’s extremely unusual for a single tiger to have attacked this many people. India’s critically endangered tiger population is soaring, a success for conservation policies, but the animals are being crowded out in a competition with humans for territory.
Forest rangers are now gearing up for a complex military-style operation to deploy sharpshooters with tranquiliser guns on the backs of half a dozen elephants to surround the tiger, capture her and send her to a zoo.
‘Political pressure’
As the death count rises — three villagers were killed in August — several politicians are demanding that the rangers simply shoot the tiger. But, in India, you can’t just shoot a tiger. Even if it is a man-eater, and even if you are working for a government agency, many strict requirements must be met before one of the endangered animals can legally be killed.
So, wildlife advocates approached India’s Supreme Court with the hope of saving T-1. But a two-judge panel upheld the forestry officials’ plan, which allows them to kill T-1 ■ The country’s effort to protect tigers, in a way, is a victim of its own success. Closer monitoring, new technology and stricter wildlife policies have led to if a concerted effort to capture her fails. “I don’t want to kill this beautiful animal,” said K.M. Abharna, a top forestry official in the Pandharkawada area, which lies near the borders of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. “But there’s a lot of political pressure and a lot of public pressure.”
Valmik Thapar, one of India’s most renowned tiger experts, said: “Our tiger situation is not a success story, it’s a mess. We have a whole bunch of islands, and the corridors in between are wiped out or degraded. Many tiger reserves are nonstarters, with less than five tigers or none at all. And we’re too arrogant to learn from anywhere else.”
The restrictions on the beef industry in many parts of India could be making the situation even more dangerous.
In several tiger areas, more prey now lives outside the dedicated tiger reserve than inside. That may be luring tigers out.
A cycle of conflict
“As soon as the tiger comes out, he sees a lot of cattle,” explained Bilal Habib, an ecology professor and tiger researcher. So the tiger decides to stick around, Bilal said, catalysing a whole cycle of conflict and death.
T-1 never lived in a dedicated tiger reserve; 30 per cent of India’s tigers don’t. Instead, they inhabit forested areas that are somewhat protected (for example, people are not supposed to build villages inside them). Every time a tiger kills someone, authorities pay compensation to the victim’s family, sometimes as much as $14,000 (Dh51,492). It’s part of a government programme to assuage grieving relatives so they don’t try to take revenge against endangered tigers.
During a capture operation, an older man who could barely walk positioned himself right next to a cage that the rangers had baited with fresh buffalo meat.
“When we asked him what he was doing,” said Abharna, “he replied: “If I die, will you give my family the money?’”
Valmik Thapar | Tiger expert